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I wonder how much that initial version changed during the 20 years of maintenance. I find it hard to believe that someone was maintaining it for 20 years witho
by schmrz 14y ago
I wonder how much that initial version changed during the 20 years of maintenance.
I find it hard to believe that someone was maintaining it for 20 years without improving the quality (of the code/design) and making it easier to maintain. Have you seen the code base of the initial version or of the version that is currently being used?
- notimetorelax 14y agoTo be fair I know of programmers that hack their code until it works and then they forget about it. Next time they need to change something: take the ax and hack away...
- cubicle67 14y agoI've know my wife for the last 18 or 19 years and it was written before that, so I haven't seen the original. I have seen him debugging code in the evenings though. This consisted of printing out the entire programme (in the DBase sense a "programme" is a single file, but a programme in our sense would be a collection of dbase programmes) and the paper (dot matrix, so it's all connected) trailing all thruought the house as he draws pencil lines all over it to reconstruct programme flow. no indentation at all The short answer to your question is no, I didn't see any evidence of improved structure or practices at all. All variables global. goto ftw. no procedures/methods/functions at all. He's never even heard of the concept when I tried to explain. [Edit: managed to get hold of some of the code (see parent) and it looks like I was wrong on the indentation - he did start to use it at some point]
- slurgfest 14y agoclosely looking at a printout is an underrated archaic practice.
- ams6110 14y agoAh yes "desk checking." When compiles took hours or would only run during the overnight batch cycle. You better believe it was worth spending some time manually reviewing your code.
- schmrz 14y agoI'm not sure if that's scary or awesome. Probably both. Thanks for sharing!
- kamaal 14y agoYou find it hard to believe because you are convinced it can't be done other wise. Once you see some one doing it you will believe otherwise.